Norn Style Human Light Armor

Here's an art test I did for ArenaNet's Class of 2012 Internship Program.

Concept by Hyojin Ahn.  All 3D elements were created from scratch from a custom base mesh I made in Maya and brought into ZBrush.  I had so much fun with this project!  It was a great opportunity for me to iron out my 3D production pipeline.  I ended up using the following process:

(1) Maya » Base mesh

(2) ZBrush » High poly sculpt

(3) Maya with NEX's quad draw » Low poly retopology

(4) UVLayout » Unwrap, selectively stack, and pack UVs

(5) Mudbox » Texturing

(6) Marmoset Toolbag » Presentation

Part 1: ZBrush High Resolution Mesh

Part 2: Low Poly Mesh

4703 tris with 1024 by 1024 pixels texture maps:

• Diffuse

• Normal

• Specular (grayscale)

• 1-bit Alpha (transparency)

A friend of mine on Polycount wanted to know why I decided to add the geometry that I did to the skirt, instead of consolidating it all into one mesh and relying on the normal map. Here is my thought process: